This being the first Whatever I Want Wednesday, I should probably explain. I’ve been trying to wake up everyday at 5:00am and just start drawing. It’s been going pretty good. The catch? Most of that time is drawing stuff that I suck at. I’ve got a mountain of art books that I’ve let go untouched for far too long. I decided that I’d start working through them in that lovely early morning hour. I think I’ll try to go through an art book every two weeks. To start, I have the most relevant of the books: The DC Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics by Freddie Williams II.
As necessary and awesomely building it is to draw like a mad man every morning…..sometimes I just want to draw for fun! I decided the middle the week was ideal for that. With that in mind I have my first distraction: Firebreather.
I LOVE Firebreather. There are a lot of comics that I like either the art or the story more, not the case with Firebreather. The pairing of Andy Kuhn on art and Phil Hester writing is perfection. The premise is great and simple: The main character is the son of a human and a dragon. Everything else in the comic is awesome fallout from that one fact.
‘Nuff writing. Let’s look at some pictures.
He is totally ready to set fire to you. Probably ’cause you ruined his threads. The more astute of you will notice there’s a pig and a monkey. A little shout out to this adorable video.
My favorite comics have art that not only I think is awesome, but I find instructful. Mr. Kuhn uses shadows like a champ. I’m afraid of shadows. I like to use different shades of color to suggest depth, because then you do not loose any of the sketch. That’s not true of Firebreather. Sometimes 3/4 or more of a character will be shaded out. Something that conceptually sounds so wrong, but done well is highly effective. What’s great about effective shadows is that it means you can use a very simple color palette. I’m completely in love with that look. So now what I need to do is grow some cajones and start shading sketches.
Most of the drama comes from Duncan (that orange dude) attending high school and looking a little….eccentric. Of course there’s also the part where sometimes he needs to fight giant monsters to retain his claim to the title of King of the Kaiju. That’s kinda neat too. Understandably a guy that looks like a dragon might be hard for people to accept. In the comics people are downright cruel to Duncan. I gave some thought to it, and I realized that I would have a very different problem getting to know Duncan.
I would totally nerd out. Someone that’s part dragon? That would be so unbelievably cool. I just wouldn’t know how to handle myself. Of course deer-in-headlights staring probably wouldn’t put me at the top of Duncan’s friend list. I’ll have to rethink my strategy.
In summation: What I’m saying is, folks, this is a comic with the phrase “King of the Kaiju”. You need nothing else. Reviews over, five stars, now go read it already!